Mark Morford: Buy a Gun [View all]

[Duncan Grant]

AKA 27 things I’ve learned from social media in 72 hours

This is not my normal content. Actually, it sort of is, as what you're about to read is more or less exactly the kind of material I used to write about every week, for close to 20 years for the SF Chronicle, in my once semi-famous opinion column, which ran from the depths of 1998 through the latter half of 2017…

Please note that most of the following tips and perspectives do not come from me (though I've added commentary and emphasis to many of them). This is a batch of responses I’ve been gleaning from some of the more thoughtful, heartbroken, but also supremely fierce humans who have been streaming through my social media feeds in the past 72 hours – mainly young women…

1. Buy a gun. I do not recognize myself for saying this, but if you are a progressive young woman living in or around a red state, and/or anywhere near frat bros, tech bros or any kind of bro, buy a gun. Even if you’ve been passionately anti-gun, anti-violence, anti-NRA as I’ve been my entire life and career, it has become blindingly clear that a shocking majority of American men do not give a fuck for your rights, your health, or your bodily autonomy. And they are displaying this gleeful misogyny right now, in full and grotesque force, all across social media…

Remaining list here.

This is excellent food for thought, extremely relevant to women’s lives, and a great preparation exercise. Topics: stock up on birth control, update your passport, reveal nothing about your life or your friend’s lives, considering a divorce (do it now), download the Signal app, leaving the country — and more. (Bookmark this thread.)